The "extra" cover plate on the back is interesting. What's up there? I've never seen an Alembic backplate with "ears" like that either.

Will the purpleheart top stay purple forever like that or does it change to that really cool reddish brown that you see in neck lams of old instruments? The top of this bass is really extremely purple.

A friend of mine who competes in concours exhibitions with his car has told me before that the high grades of sandpaper like 3500 actually are smoother than paper short of glossy clay coated printing papers.

I wonder if there is any kind of additive that could be put in the finish to block out some of the components in light to slow down the fading. There are additives in added to glass used in art galleries and and to some photographic prints which is designed to block or at least slow down the effects of the harmful rays within the light they are exposed to. It would change the look of that bass dramatically if it faded to brown.

UV is strong stuff, as sunworshippers know to their detriment. There are UV filter chemicals which are added to laquers & paints(where I work is where ICI did extensive research into colour durability of paint, they had hundreds of samples facing the sun) but UV will eventually cause colour fading. It's all to do with quantum mechanics.